


Small Things

by Suspicious_Popsicle



Series: Mix Tape [6]
Category: Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 07:04:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suspicious_Popsicle/pseuds/Suspicious_Popsicle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A/N: I'm certain that this is far more interesting in my head. Believe it or not, this is a big step forward for them. Some of this will come back in future shorts.</p>
<p>Disclaimer: The characters in this story are from Tales of Vesperia and do not belong to me.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Small Things

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I'm certain that this is far more interesting in my head. Believe it or not, this is a big step forward for them. Some of this will come back in future shorts.
> 
> Disclaimer: The characters in this story are from Tales of Vesperia and do not belong to me.

It was possible, Flynn supposed, that he was simply being paranoid. It was entirely reasonable to think that he was exaggerating what had always been the norm between them, that he was blowing their busy schedules and Yuri’s appreciation for company out of proportion. It was _possible_ , but it wasn’t very likely. The truth was that Yuri was avoiding him.

Heaving a sigh, he rolled over beneath the covers. Karol and Judy had been over to practice almost before Yuri had made it back from his classes, and as soon as the Capels picked up their son a few hours later, Yuri and Judy had been off to get some dinner. It seemed that Flynn didn’t merit an invitation without Crash around, and he couldn’t put into words how much that bothered him. He’d met several of the friends Yuri had brought over to the house and out of all of them, only Crash had ever tried to include him.

Lately, Yuri had almost always been among friends or with his band when he was home. He surrounded himself with them, a barrier that Flynn couldn’t breach because he wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t even about what music they listened to, or the fact that Flynn wasn’t a part of Dragon Swarm. That sort of thing hadn’t made a difference the few times he’d played with Yuri. They could appreciate the passion in each other. They could respect hard work and talent when they saw it. Yuri had been right all along. They were very much alike.

It was something nebulous and undefined that kept Flynn from fitting in with Yuri’s crowd. He was like a puzzle piece dropped in the wrong box, and he soon gave up trying to hang around and join in on the conversation. He didn’t like the way things were—didn’t like to think that Yuri was so eager to put distance between them, didn’t like to think that Yuri could get his way so easily—but what could he do about it? He hadn’t particularly taken to any of Yuri’s friends, and, while none of them outright rejected him, they weren’t particularly welcoming of his company, either. He simply wasn’t part of that group. He got along well enough with Karol and Judy, but their visits were almost always for practice sessions and Flynn didn’t sit in on many of those.

He rolled over again, yanking at the tangled sheets. It wasn’t just the people Yuri kept having over, either. He was leaving earlier and staying out later. They’d barely spoken a dozen words to each other the past week. Twice, Flynn had woken up to find a note on the kitchen table asking him to give Repede dinner and let him back in before he went to bed.

It wasn’t even having to feed the dog that bothered him. It was just that he would have liked Yuri to actually ask him, to give him the option of saying ‘no, sorry, I have other plans.’ Was it that hard to exercise the simple courtesy of asking a favor in person? They’d gone from barely able to stand each other to nearly friends to something like a couple caught in an awkward divorce, except they were both keeping the house and Flynn was in charge of feeding Yuri’s dog. It was like he was being continually punished. Every time it seemed like they might turn a corner, something would go wrong and they’d end up arguing and at odds once more. Flynn was beginning to wonder why he stayed.

From outside came the rumble of an engine and the faint scrunch of tires on the gravel drive. A car door slammed as he looked at his alarm clock. Two eleven. If Flynn had actually managed to get to sleep, Yuri would have woken him up past two in the morning. It wouldn’t have been the first time, either. Yuri had been keeping later-than-usual hours over the past couple of weeks, and even though he seemed to be trying to keep the noise to a minimum when he got home, it was still usually enough to wake Flynn.

He flipped over onto his back and scowled up at the ceiling through the gloom. He could hear the car drive off as the front door opened and closed, and then the jingle of keys as Yuri tossed them carelessly aside. He was always doing things like that, always leaving papers and dishes and cans and all manner of things lying around the house. He’d left his phone behind more times than Flynn could count. Even when he tried to clean up after himself he would leave things lying around. When Flynn washed the dishes, they got dried and put back in the cabinet. When Yuri washed dishes, they were left stacked on dishcloths beside the sink, ostensibly to dry, but he never did seem to get around to putting them away.

Really, Yuri was far from an ideal roommate. He had days where he would hole himself up in his room and play late into the night. It wasn’t so bad when he used Anemone. Yuri’s playing was always a little softer on the guitar he’d gotten from Niren, but there were other nights when he’d stay up with Old Scratch. No matter how low the volume on the amp, Flynn always had trouble sleeping with those notes drilling straight through the thin walls of the old house. Any complaints the next morning would only be met with a shrug and a brief apology, coupled with the excuse that he’d lost track of time.

He was a messy roommate, too. The living room was unusable if Flynn wanted to have friends over, filled as it was with clutter from Yuri’s band. Half the time when he did laundry, he would leave it sitting in the dryer afterward, and sometimes even in the washer. He never swept, never mopped, never vacuumed. He left wet towels bunched up in corners of the bathroom floor and wandered the house after showers, letting his wet hair drip everywhere.

All those small things added up on their own, but then there was Yuri, himself. He was manic some days, filled to overflowing with impossible energy that prevented him from sitting still and kept him grinning and joking. Other days, he would be quiet and calm, perhaps with a smirk to hint at his playful side, perhaps with a faraway look in his eyes, something pensive and thoughtful. Then there were his bad days, days when anything that passed between them was grounds for an argument. They hadn’t broken into a physical fight since that night outside Keiv Rock, but there was violence in Yuri that stirred so very close to the surface, sometimes.

Unintelligible murmuring filtered into his room: Yuri talking quietly to Repede. He caught the creak of the bathroom door and the click of the switch. Light shone faintly from underneath his door, accompanied by the soft rush of running water. The taps turned off, the light disappeared with a click, and Yuri’s footsteps neared and passed, heading down the hall to his own room. Flynn was left once more in silence, and he tossed and turned, trying to out-think his unreasonable attraction to his exasperating roommate.

\----------------

Yuri was awake before Flynn the next morning, which probably shouldn’t have come as any real surprise. It wasn’t like he had anything that would be keeping him up at night. He took a shower first thing, which was what woke Flynn up. Yuri seemed undyingly amused by what the acoustics in the tiled bathroom did with his voice, and he would sing in the shower, shouting and grunting in turn, only occasionally falling back to the more melodic vocals Flynn knew he was capable of. It remained an exceedingly strange experience to hear Dragon Swarm’s songs without instruments to back up the vocals, and Flynn pulled a pillow over his head, trying to block out the sound and get just a few more minutes of sleep.

He must have drifted off, because the next thing he knew, the house was quiet again. Yuri had probably left, run off once more to avoid Flynn and his unwanted feelings. He dragged himself out of bed, knowing he needed to get up but not terribly happy about the thought. Yawning, he trudged out of his room.

The bathroom was, of course, a shambles. One sopping wet towel was crammed up against the side of the tub. Another had been discarded beside the sink. There were puddles of water all over the floor and toothpaste splatter on the mirror. Thick gobs of suds oozed their way down the sides of the sink, fresh enough that he realized Yuri probably hadn’t actually left for the day just yet.

Flynn was willing to bet he wasn’t going to come back and clean it up. He never cleaned it up. He never took responsibility for any of the messes he left around their house.

Taking a step back, a towel squelched cold and wet and highly unpleasant beneath his foot. Growling, he kicked at it, caught his toe against the side of the tub, and slipped. He fell hard and it was the last straw. Shouting for Yuri, he hauled himself up and strode down the hall toward the door at the end that almost always stood ajar.

“ _Yuri_!”

“What? I’m in the kitchen.”

He spun in time to see Yuri peering into the hall, a grin spreading across his face.

“Your butt’s wet.”

“Whose fault do you think that is? I just slipped because you couldn’t be bothered to clean up the mess you left in the bathroom!”

“It’s just a little water. What are you freaking out for?” He ducked back into the kitchen before Flynn caught up with him, and tossed the bowl and spoon he was holding into the sink. He turned on the water and soaped up a sponge. There was already a cloth stacked high with dishes he’d washed the day before, all of them bone dry and ready to be put away, but did Yuri care? Hell no. He was going to add to his little pile with a bowl that was just going to drip all over it, and then he was going to complain that the dishes needed to be dry before he could put them away.

Flynn placed himself barely a step behind Yuri and crossed his arms. “We need to set up some rules.”

He actually had the gall to start laughing at that as he scrubbed out the bowl.

“I’m not joking.”

“Yeah, that’s why it’s funny. Make yourself some rules. Have fun with it.” He set the dripping bowl upside down on top of the pile of clean, dry dishes.

“This isn’t just your house. I pay half of the rent and half of the bills. I deserve to get a say in what goes on.”

Without turning to look at him, Yuri lifted one hand over his shoulder and flicked water off his fingers. Slowly, Flynn wiped the droplets off his face. Obviously, this was not going to be a civil discussion. He grabbed Yuri by the arm and yanked him around, only to be roughly shoved away.

“I’m not playing with you, Yuri! Go clean it up!”

Yuri shifted a little, taking on the stance he settled into so often before a fight. He lifted a hand, palm up, and beckoned Flynn with his fingers. “Make me,” he said, an unbearably smug smile on his face.

Drawing a deep breath, Flynn forced his fists to unclench. “I’m not going to fight you over this.”

With a snort, Yuri stood straight and turned back to the sink. “Clean it up yourself, then,” he muttered.

He would never know how Yuri saw the punch coming, because he, himself, hadn’t intended to lash out. Still, he had a quick, surprising glimpse through his sudden rage of Yuri grinning at him past the hand he had clenched around Flynn’s fist, past the only thing that had saved him from a blow that—at best—would have left him with a nasty bruise. One brief moment of staring straight into Yuri’s face, of seeing that spreading, self-satisfied, infuriating grin, and then they were throwing punches left and right, shuffling around the small kitchen as they tried to tear into one another.

Yuri was fast and vicious, but not particularly choosy about where he aimed his hits, and it wasn’t difficult to turn aside or block most of them. Few of his own punches landed. Yuri moved like a hummingbird, darting this way and that, ducking and taunting. He actually managed to slip around behind but, the second he attempted a hold, Flynn had him by the arm and was hauling him bodily over his shoulder. He had enough presence of mind not to actually slam Yuri onto the floor, though he immediately realized that had been a mistake. Yuri managed to get a grip and drag him down. They grappled, rolling across the linoleum, both far more concerned with beating the crap out of each other than with getting away. There were no shouts, no swears, just grunts and harsh breaths and a focus so fine that it nearly edged out Flynn’s anger in favor of the need to dominate, to be just that little bit better than a tough opponent.

Flynn barely felt Yuri’s punches, and didn’t know if his own were having any effect. There was no telling if either of them had the upper hand, not when they were that close, not when they were so eager to lash out that neither was even attempting to search for a weakness to exploit. Somehow, Yuri slipped away and managed to get to his feet. Flynn went lumbering up and after him, unconcerned about the lack of grace in his movements. Grinning, Yuri backed away from him until he ran up against the countertops and found himself cornered. He had nowhere to run, no room to dodge, and Flynn managed to get in a couple solid hits before Yuri dropped straight down and slipped away between his legs.

He didn’t go far. A quick sweep of his leg and he knocked Flynn to the floor once again, winding him with an elbow to the gut. He could have followed up on his advantage or used the chance to get away, but Repede had apparently decided that he’d given the humans enough time to play on their own. The dog charged in, knocking Yuri flat onto his back.

Rubbing the ache from that last blow, Flynn sat up, looking down at Yuri as he wrestled with his dog, both of them baring their teeth and growling and shaking each other playfully. He was trapped against the cabinets, with one of Yuri’s legs thrown in between his, and he leaned against the wooden doors and caught his breath, watching as Repede shoved his muzzle into Yuri’s face and began licking him mercilessly. Laughing, Yuri squirmed and shoved at him, and finally Flynn took pity on him and grabbed Repede, ruffling his fur and pulling his attention away from Yuri who lay there, gasping and grinning, dying laughter still spilling from his lips.

He focused on Flynn, gray eyes bright.

“I want a parfait,” he said. “Wanna come along?”

Startled, Flynn’s hands fell away from Repede and the dog surged forward to lick his face until the petting resumed.

“What, just the two of us?” He couldn’t believe he’d heard right. Yuri had been avoiding him for weeks. Was it a joke? Was he plotting revenge?

“Well, I don’t think the Teahouse will let Repede in.” He stood up, wincing, but still grinning and guileless as he offered Flynn a hand. “Come on.”

Feeling very confused, Flynn took hold of Yuri’s hand and got to his feet.


End file.
